


Ice Like Mirrors: A Blatant Mary Sue Cyberthriller

by weeblordjay



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: F/M, It's my cursed friend as a Mary Sue OC, Straight-faced crack, This is literally what it says in the title, Thriller, if that's a thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-07 10:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15216797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeblordjay/pseuds/weeblordjay
Summary: Yusaku never thought of himself as a hero. He could simply never bear the thought of leaving people in distress when he had the ability to whisk them out, because if nobody had helped him during the Lost Incident back then, then where would he be? However, when the threats he deals with get increasingly worse and he's pushed to his limits, a mysterious girl appears in his life and challenges the way he's done things. He wonders if he's really doing the world any favors in the long run, just fixing things whenever they go wrong.He wonders if it'd be better to rule the world and stop any bullshit before it begins.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sakuraa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakuraa/gifts).



Chapter 1

Yusaku Fujiki bit the inside of his cheek as his physics teacher fumbled with the wheeled-in chalkboard at the front of the lecture hall. The squeak of its long-rusted wheels echoed into chilly silence. Snow fell outside the windows, from a mutedly-shining sky washing a whole degree of color out of the world. Their shadows drifted like phantom feathers over the polished desktops and blanched faces of his classmates. Ghostly white fabric draped over the lecture screens they normally stared at, thick as the tension congealing between the rows of seats.

 _You’ve been defeated_ , the covered-up screens seemed to say, laughing at them all. _You are scared of me_.

When Yusaku closed his eyes, he could hear those words in the distorted, glitching voice of Diamond Black, the hacker responsible for all this.

No… Were they even a hacker?

Even human?

Yusaku’s gaze fell to his tablet, which now iced an instinctive jolt of fear up his spine. The metadata of the latest duel footage involving Diamond Black glowed hauntingly on the screen. No matter what Yusaku did, he couldn’t decode it into coherent visuals.

And neither could anyone else for any of Diamond’s duels since they’d begun.

There was no discernible pattern to when they’d happen, and which screens across the world would be hijacked to broadcast one. Some teenager could be scrolling through social media, and the view of a random well-known figure could suddenly overtake their phone screen. Some white-collar worker could be in the middle of doing taxes, and they could be forced to watch that celebrity panic in a VR world that looked like a grayscale Link VRAINS, but wasn’t. This was how all the duels started, and by now, everybody knew what’d happen next. A shadow would approach the victim, gliding on the ground in the direction they weren’t looking. Then the feed would glitch out, giving only flashes of unknown cards being played, punctuated by soul-wrenching screams and Diamond Black’s warped voice. Then it’d cut to the victim’s avatar lying crumpled on a rooftop near a streaming datastorm, their limbs broken to odd angles, their mouth a gaping hole, their eyes crystallized to black diamonds.

Proper footage of what exactly went on during the duels had yet to be recovered.

 _We are not responsible_ , the megacorporations said. _The best computer engineers in the world are working to resolve this_ , the international governments said. _We will not let the actions of cyberterrorists cripple our daily lives with fear_ , the world leaders said.

Yet as Yusaku’s teacher struggled to set up the chalkboard, a relic from twenty years ago that no one expected to resort to again, no one in the class could find the heart to chitchat like usual. Only occasional murmurs between friends stirred the air. They gaped blankly at the absurdity, at what their lives were like now. The knowledge that the screens behind the drapes could get hijacked any time hung in the air like shards of glass, pushing and scraping through every taken breath. They were all just pretending things were fine, as if spiderweb cracks weren’t splitting across the society they knew and trusted, so fragile all along.

“I really should’ve learnt how to program when I was little,” Takeru mumbled, peering at Yusaku’s tablet screen. Dark circles pooled under his normally-bright eyes, ghastly in the pale snow light. “Then maybe I could actually be helping.”

“It’s fine,” Yusaku said, though his eyelids drooped. Takeru, as Soulburner, had staged dozens of public challenges to Diamond Black so far. Not once had he been acknowledged.

And maybe that was for the best.

Yusaku and Takeru had overcome impossible odds together, but this wasn’t like anything they’d once faced. They didn’t even know what Diamond Black wanted.

Frowning, Yusaku scrapped the most recent lines of codes he’d written and tried another approach. If he couldn’t even crack this, how could he hope to touch Diamond Black?

“Oh, right!” their physics teacher’s exhausted voice broke the tense air. She backed away from the chalkboard with her hands on her hips. “Before I forget and leave the poor girl out there—we have a new transfer student, everyone!”

“Huh.” Takeru blinked. “This is a weird time to be getting—”

The back doors to the lecture hall creaked open. The thick-soled shoes of Den Academy’s winter uniform thudded down the stairs.

A wave swept through the students in the lecture hall as they collectively turned. Then gasped.

Yusaku hardly ever cared about stuff like this, but the reaction made him take a slight peek over his shoulder as well.

Then he froze, mouth open.

Up above, making her way gingerly down the aisle stairs, was a girl like none he had ever seen before. The top of her hair was white as the snow swirling outside, and transitioned in a perfect, elegant gradient to a blue like the heart of glaciers. The soft strands draped over her fitted uniform in loose pigtails, tied off by two icy, translucent ribbons.

“Wow,” Takeru breathed, the sound a puff of hot air beside Yusaku’s ear, sending a shiver across his heightened senses.

The girl’s eyelashes, white and delicate like swan fur, batted innocently at the gawking stares drawn to her presence by a force like magnetism. Her pupils were black as a cool autumn night where hearts broke and hands let go, and her irises shone like sapphires that had rained from the heavens and sunk into the ocean deep.

“Everyone,” Yusaku’s physics teacher said, though no one was paying attention in that direction now. “This is Den Academy’s newest student, Rari Hoshimizu.”

A blush bloomed across the girl’s pale cheeks. The corners of her soft pink lips lilted up into an awkward smile.

“Please. Call me Ra.”

#

Takeru seemed a lot more upbeat after Ra got assigned to the row behind him and Yusaku. He even spun at the waist and gave a little wave.

Which made Yusaku want to smack him.

Did Takeru forget that they had much bigger things to worry about? Sure, he couldn’t help with any hacking, but the least he could do was not got distracted by frivolous things.

Though it was admittedly hard for Yusaku to concentrate on cracking the footage, knowing that girl was sitting right behind him. His uniform seemed too tight, his skin too hot.

It made him uncomfortable.

Unlike most other boys his age, Yusaku had never really been interested in girls. They seemed either shallow and silly and plagued with emotions, like Aoi Zaizen, or money-hungry and dangerous, like Ghost Girl.

None had ever affected him like _this_.

He felt as if a string had looped several turns around his heart, tugging, binding, coaxing him to turn around and meet those crystal blue eyes.

Yusaku winced. He could not give in. Humanity’s future was on the line.

Throughout the rest of the class, he tapped at his code, trying and failing to make concrete changes. His gaze swam past digits and letters, but they wouldn’t stick long in his perception before his mind drifted… elsewhere.

All right. That was fine. This was a sign. It was time to quit school and investigate Diamond Black full time.

He didn’t need a high school diploma anyway.

When the bell rang, he almost lurched to his feet, ready to pack his stuff up and go. But at the same time, a message appeared in a corner of his screen.

 

_Try this._

_\--Crystal Blue_

 

It came with a code file in the same format as the type he worked in.

That was weird.

This screamed “ _probably spam_ ”, but Yusaku was confident enough in his defense measures and system backups to execute the file. The bulk of his data was in the hot dog truck anyway. As he slung his bag over his shoulder and walked toward the aisle, the code scrolled across his console.

Then a frame of the footage beside it came clear.

Yusaku stopped in his tracks. Takeru bumped into him, but he hardly felt it. Chills swept over his skin in waves, icing him to the core. Every sense seemed to draw far away from him, except his vision, which could focus on nothing but the deciphered image.

An outstretched hand armored in black. The pink and blue hints of a datastorm coursing through a gray world. A link monster being played, with the name _Divine Mirror – World Kaleidoscope_.

Yusaku’s attention swung to the code file. How had it cracked this?

But if he was shocked before, it was nothing compared to when he actually began reading the code.

Besides a few brilliant tweaks here and there, the base of the code was his own, down to the revisions he’d made at the beginning of class. There were only three ways this was possible:

  1. Someone had somehow monitored his interface without triggering any of his anti-reconnaissance programs.
  2. Someone was tracking his keystrokes.
  3. The person who’d sent the file had been sitting in physical view of his screen.




	2. Dragon Lady

“Wait—!” Takeru huffed to keep up with Yusaku, stumbling through the flow of people in the halls, shoes squeaking against the damp floor. “Slow down! What’s happening?”

“Either my systems are utterly compromised, or the new girl piggybacked off my code by peeping over my shoulder.” Yusaku searched the sluggish crowds ahead for a glimpse of white-and-blue hair. The patches of light reflecting off the linoleum floor struck his eyes into a squint. “And then she _succeeded in cracking the footage_.”

“ _What_?”

“Did you notice her typing really fast throughout the class?” Yusaku threw Takeru a backward glance, breath misting in an arc through the air.

“She… She did seem to be taking some very aggressive notes?”

Gritting his teeth, Yusaku ducked into an empty classroom. He swung his bag to the front and fished out his duel disk. “Ai, wake up!”

“Huh—what?” Ai popped out, hands grasping for the edge of the duel disk.

“Get ready to do a facial recognition search for a girl. Her name is Rari Hoshimizu.”

“Um—”

“Hold on, when you say she cracked the footage—” Takeru followed Yusaku in and closed the door behind him with a metallic slide and _click_. “What did it show?”

“A card,” Yusaku said with a distracted wave of his hand. “And Diamond Black’s arm, I think.”

Takeru’s brows furrowed. But before he could speak, Flame sprang out of the duel disk hanging on his backpack strap. “What kind of card? What deck does that punk play? What do they look like?”

“It doesn’t matter. We have to find—”

“ _Doesn’t matter_?” Flame flailed. “Playmaker, every pixel of that footage could potentially lead us to Diamond Black! We need to be analyzing that right away!”

The wild momentum driving Yusaku hit a dead stop. He looked at Takeru and Flame, really looked at them. His senses caught up in the lapse, making him aware of the sheen of cold sweat on his skin and the aching thrash of his heart.

Flame crossed his arms. His eyes burnt a shining yellow in the dim classroom. “She would’ve stuck around if she wanted to talk to you right now. Or walked away slower. Or—how are you even sure it’s not a coincidence? Wouldn’t you be giving yourself away if you try to talk to her about it, if she’s not really the hacker?”

Takeru looked between Flame and Yusaku. “Flame’s right. I think we should get to the hot dog truck; we need more info on both Diamond Black _and_ the girl before making a move.

Yusaku blinked a few times, then looked away, touching his brow. “Right. Yes.”

“What’s with you?” Ai squinted up at him. “This is like, cyber-vigilante-ing basics. No one should’ve had to remind you of this.”

“Shut up.”

 

#

“Divine Mirror… World Kaleidoscope…” Kusanagi rubbed the patch of beard at his chin. The decoded image on the hot dog truck’s big screens bathed a pale aura over his face. “Judging by the card names quoted in the effect text, Divine Mirror is the archetype. I’d guess the deck focuses on… unlocking effects by achieving various forms of field symmetry. Because this Link 4 has at least two different effects based on how other cards are arranged around it.”

Takeru wheeled closer to the screen, chair rolling over the frosty, patterned steel on the floor. “Ugh, I hate these monsters with effect texts that take, like, a magnifying glass to read. And that’s only with half the box.” He leaned over Kusanagi’s keyboard and tried to swipe the image to see further down the card. “Why couldn’t this shot have gotten the whole thing?”

Kusanagi peered at Yusaku’s screens. “Any luck on cracking other frames?”

Yusaku sucked in a breath of frigid air, which carried a hint of lemon from the industrial-strength degreaser Kusanagi used around the truck. Surrounded by all the metal, the chill was bone-deep. “I was right in guessing the footage is encrypted in a way that requires a set of unique values to break each frame. But I have no idea what equation she used to derive these.”

“And you really think this… Rari Hoshimizu…” Kusanagi’s fingers pattered over his keyboard in a search for records on her, “was the one who pulled it off.”

“It’s a high possibility.”

“She’s—oh, very pretty.” Kusanagi blinked at her governmental profile.

Flame stretched to right in front of the screen. “Hmm, so she transferred here because her father got promoted to the Den City branch of the company he works at. And her mother is a businesswoman as well.”

“Wow, both parents alive!” Ai exclaimed.

Yusaku, Takeru, and Kusanagi threw him blank stares in sync.

“You can’t say it’s not… pretty rare in our circle.” Ai shrugged.

Yusaku looked back at Kusanagi. “It’s also easily-falsified info if she’s good enough to crack even Black Diamond’s algorithms.”

Kusanagi’s chair squeaked as he leaned back. “It’s hard to believe any other sixteen year old could hack better than you.”

Ai crossed his arms. “Or it’s an unknown hacker who’s peeping at all of Yusaku’s porn without even tickling the best defense programs we can code. I don’t know which is scarier!”

“That porn is yours, Ai,” Yusaku snapped. “ _You_ downloaded it.”

“Oh, haven’t you heard Revolver? I’m based on you.” Ai’s eyes curved into a lewd expression. “I _am_ you.”

Kusanagi burst into laughter. “Getting a little off topic here.”

Flame rolled his eyes at Takeru. “Aren’t you glad you’re buddied up with me instead of that one?”

“I don’t know, Flame, are you really going to take pride in being better than _Ai_?” Takeru raised a brow.

“Hey!” Ai fumed.

“Now, now. We’ve got a world to save.” Kusanagi strained down his smile. “So what we need now is the equation from Crystal Blue to crack more frames. Yusaku, have you tried just messaging them back and asking for it?”

Yusaku opened his mouth to say something stern, but then backtracked and cast a confused look at his tablet.

“I know, it sounds way too simple,” Kusanagi continued. “But it wouldn’t hurt to try, right? They must’ve had a reason for sharing the completed code with you.”

“I guess.” Eyelids batting, Yusaku picked up his tablet and carefully composed a message, asking who Crystal Blue was and how they derived the values. It felt weird. He had never just casually communicated with a potentially-dangerous enemy before. But then again, everything about Crystal Blue was weird.

About three minutes later, his tablet _booped_ as it received a reply.

Kusanagi and Takeru lurched in their seats.

“What does it say?” Takeru said.

“They… sent me a set of Link VRAINS coordinates.” Yusaku stared dazedly ahead for a second, then rose to his feet.

“Oh, no, are you gonna go?” Ai said, frazzled.

“We have no other leads.”

“Should I come with?” Takeru spun in his seat as Yusaku walked across the truck, steps ringing on metal.

“Only if necessary. If it’s a trap, we can’t both be caught.” Yusaku entered the hidden booth built in the truck meant for keeping his body safe in case anything unexpected showed up in real life while he was in VR.

“Oh, you even know it might be a trap!” Ai flailed. “Come on, let’s not go. You can’t go! You—oh, who am I kidding, you always go to these things,” Ai said the same time Yusaku shouted “Deck set, _into the VRAINS!_ ”

 

#

Ai screamed as Playmaker swerved through a violent data storm between soaring virtual skyscrapers. Neon lines and figures streaked past them. Playmaker dropped his hands to his D-Board to lower his centre of gravity. The coordinates had whisked them to a Link VRAINS region he vaguely recognized as a new maximum-duel-difficulty expansion with the concept of “oasis metropolis on distant sand planet”. And it being new also meant it was _popular_.

“I knew it was a trap! I knew it!” Ai shrieked over the cheers and exclamations of “ _Playmaker!”_ from the people running on the sandy streets below and pressed against the sleek windows of the gleaming, futuristic skyscrapers.

“Shut up!” Playmaker gripped the edge of his board and dodged a floating billboard ad surrounded by swirls of data. The setting virtual sun flooded sideways between the buildings, tracing edges in gold and tinting everything else in a smoky haze of orange and red. The bickering shouts of paparazzi reporters cut closer and closer through the howling winds.

_“Boy, SOL is not having any trouble getting people to log in,”_ Takeru remarked through the comm links.

_“That’s the mighty force of capitalism_ ,” Kusanagi said. _“And their social media PR team, I guess. Gotta thank Akira Zaizen.”_

_“Hmpf,”_ Flame grunted. _“Humans naturally want to escape from stressful situations. There’s probably even more logged in than usual.”_

_“Do you guys know if anyone’s been Diamond Blackened while logged in to another VR?”_ Takeru said. _“Is that even possible?”_

_“I am not going to answer if you keep using that term,”_ Flame said.

_“Oh, come on, Flame, everybody says Diamond Blackened! It’s convenient!”_

_“Well, I do not!”_

“Let me focus!” Playmaker swung his board sideways to avoid scuffing a building. Molten sunset orange shone across the black glass flying parallel beneath him.

“Playmaker!” came an artificially-clear shout overriding all other sounds in Link VRAINS.

Playmaker craned his head to face it. A girl in a rather interesting avatar surfed toward him, crouching low, one hand splayed on her board and the other hand waving.

“Wow,” Ai’s eyes widened, “Dragon lady!”

Playmaker would never admit it, but that was his exact same first thought.

Over a Roman-style toga fluttering in the data winds, the girl wore dainty pieces of armor that seemed made of dragon scales. A visor slashed over her eyes and beyond her head, which held a crown braid of snowy hair, each crisscross stretched to a diamond shape by a glinting blue imbed.

But none of those were the truly interesting part—no, her tail was.

It swayed behind her legs, soft white scales translucent pink under the fiery clouds and draining sky.

“Crystal Blue?” Playmaker spoke through his own Clear Voice program and flexed to push his board upright again.

“Yup!” She soared off her current and landed with a judder on the one he was veering on. “Nice to meet you, Playmaker!”

Playmaker twisted sideways to face her. He tried to determine how similar her voice was to Rari Hoshimizu’s, but Rari had spoken too little in real life. Plus, it was generally futile trying to gauge someone’s identity by their avatar. Anyone could be anything.

“How did you complete the hack you did?” he said.

“I’ll tell you if you duel me,” she said with a beaming grin. “But there’s a condition—no AIs!” She pointed to Ai. “If he talks during the duel, I won’t say a word.”

Ai’s shining eyes squeezed into a frown. “Wow, are you an AI hater or something?”

“You can judge that for yourself.” She cocked her head. “In silence.”

Ai rolled his eyes up at Playmaker. “Why are the best hackers always the ones who hate AIs the mo—”

“You heard her.” Playmaker glared. “Shut up.”

“ _What_?” Ai somehow broke into tears, eyes going full puppy dog. “Oh, my dearest best friend Playmaker, you can’t let—!”

“I accept!” Playmaker hit the mute button on Ai, which he really should be using more often.

“All right!” Crystal Blue spun her whole board around to face the paparazzi reporters. “Hello, everyone! My name is Crystal Blue. Wish me a good debut duel!”

A frown passed Playmaker’s face.

Why did she choose such a public area to meet? She couldn’t be using his fame for attention, could she?

No, that didn’t make sense. She could’ve gained a lot more publicity and respect by releasing Diamond Black footage frames without involving him.

So then what did she want?

“Let’s go!” She turned back to him, data spurting under her board. The slanted orange sun rays hit her smile head-on. Stray hairs rustled beside her cheeks and visor, glowing gold in the light.

“ _Speed duel_!” they shouted together.

The dice mechanism in their duel disks activated, randomizing. She landed the higher roll.

“I go first!” She swept her arm to visualize her five starting cards. “I activate the field spell—Frostbyte Crystal Interface!”

“Frostbyte?” Playmaker muttered to himself. He hadn’t heard of that archetype before.

“It lets me add one level four or lower Frostbyte monster to my hand. I choose Frostbyte Hatchling! When added to my hand by a card effect, this card can be special summoned in defense position.”

She smirked enigmatically before tapping the card.

A small armoured dragon burst out in a flurry of snow. When its stats and properties rolled out, Playmaker couldn’t stop his eyes from widening.

It was a Cyberse.

 

#

“Attack, Frostbyte Phishing Dragon!”

Playmaker shielded his eyes from the oncoming blizzard force. “But you also take damage!”

Piercing blue light detonated between them, flashing between the skyscrapers.

When the smoke and effects cleared, both their lifepoints dropped to 0.

“ _It’s a draaaaaaaaaaw!_ ” some announcer yelled at the top of his virtual lungs.

Cheers and applause erupted through the alien metropolis, enclosing them in what seemed like solid walls of noise.

Crystal Blue and Playmaker stared at each other—or, maybe? Who knew with that visor on her avatar.

Playmaker’s words caught in his throat. He’d gotten a pretty good idea of who she was throughout the duel. He wasn’t even unsettled by the draw. He just wanted to talk, but, frustratingly, there were too many people around.

Then, unexpectedly, she took a running jump off her board.

Wind tunneled around Playmaker in shining bits of data, then she landed in front of him, plummeting his board with her momentum. She threw her arms around his neck to keep from falling off.

“Talk to you in school,” she quickly whispered then planted a kiss on his cheek.

The cheers from the onlookers doubled in ferocity.

She broke away and logged out, waving with her fingers as she pixilated away.

Steeling himself, Playmaker logged out as well, expression neutral.

When his consciousness landed back in reality as Yusaku Fujiki, the Link VRAINS booth opened to the shocked faces of Kusanagi, Takeru, and Flame.

“She’s—!” Ai broke from his mute feature and began shrieking.

“The sixth Lost Child.” Yusaku’s glare hardened. “I know.”

 

#

With a satisfying _ding_ from her duel disk, Rari Hoshimizu emerged from Link VRAINS. Her smile stretched wide as she sat up in her couch.

“ _Yes!_ You pulled that off perfectly, dear!” Aqua sprouted from the old-style duel disk on her desk. Night had fallen, so the twin-tailed Water Ignis glowed vividly in the dim apartment.

“Thanks, you’re so kind.” Ra blushed and rose to her feet, her own loose pigtails patting against her blouse. Snow drifted outside her window, blurring Den City’s ocean of neon signs. She tucked her white-blue hair behind her ears and moved toward the blinking asterisks of light from her equipment.

At her touch, a dozen screens activated, flooding the apartment in blue light.

“His reputation is no sham. I almost didn’t think I could make it through those last few turns.” Ra slumped down in her giant armchair and steepled her fingers. The light from the screens seemed to shine through her pale skin and down to her bones.

“Nonsense,” Aqua said with a wave of her hand. “If Ryoken can tie with him, there’s no reason you can’t.”

Ra’s smile collapsed. “Well, I’m just glad things went as we planned.” She opened a code file in her encrypted folders. “Now let’s make the next phase go even smoother.”

When she scrolled to where she left off, the words “ _YOU CAN’T ESCAPE ME”_ screamed out at her, sprawled in red.

Ra squeezed her eyes shut and forced her nerves to calm down.

After the adrenaline faded, she casually commented the words out with two backslashes so it wouldn’t mess up her code, then added her own reply.

 

_//I’m not trying to anymore._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Frostbytes and Divine Mirrors are not real archetypes.
> 
> Shout outs to the VRAINS server for failing to tell me what "commenting" was in programming when I forgot what the term was.

**Author's Note:**

> Isn't Ra so beautiful
> 
> More characters and chapters to come


End file.
